Soldiers of Harakoni
by Gutsu
Summary: The 42nd Harakoni Warhawks launch an attack on a Chaos held city. The story is complete and there will be no further chapters. Reviews and critiques are very welcome.
1. Prologue

Somewhere in the darkness, ambient whispers call out. They speak of names and places of my past, present and a future unforetold. As though I were lost in the plumbing of a city's sewers, I hear the trickle of water echo in the vastness of my proximity. I was to think that's where I am, someplace closed and dark without any concern for the predators of the night.

I cannot see beyond the length of my own breath, chilled to mist each time I exhale. I want to see, I want to hear beyond the voices like an insect's hive, but my senses wither without being attuned, the darkness and sounds and cold numbing everything.

Light began to stir far beyond the horizon, and I saw for the first time that I stood in a desert, which could make no real sense if the sounds had any meaning. The sand is a rust red, glorious as a sun off the beach in the morning. And all around, there are eight lines stretching beyond the point I stand, similar is symmetry as a compass. The line in the desert seem to stretch on for miles, into the vast infinity of geometric planes that a human mind could never live long enough to fathom.

The sun in all its brilliance strikes my eyes for the first time in colors that are impossible by the spectrums of Terra. The direct light was black, and for the moment I could remember before my sight was lost I swore that the horizon curved and clouds twisted concave, as though it was a vast eye that looked back, staring at me just as I briefly as I had stared at it.

On my knees, I winced and felt my eyes convulse, trying to remain shut involuntarily as I tried to force them open. Like chlorine was caught in them, they stung horribly for a moment until the pain began to gradually fade. It grew cold again, and the skies became grey as the clouds hid that horrid sun behind them.

But I was not entirely swallowed in darkness. The clouds seemed to roll through the skies like a conveyer belt, and flashes not of white, but red illuminated the sky, violently cutting into the air, and the ground seemed to hiss from the eight lines of sand. In all its directions, the lines seemed to be disappearing, like an object I could not see was flattening the lines back into the sand and heading directly for me, at the very heart of the formation.

My eyesight had returned in time to find the lines halted at various lengths from the center, the ends became acute angles. It was the old symbol, unpredicability, chaos. I stood in the center.

I hate my dreams...


	2. Chapter 1

Ask me about faith and I'd tell you.

I'd tell you it's where you put yourself during those few moments when you haven't the slightest inclining of power over what is about to happen. Every ounce of skill, endurance and luck were in the hands of the few and capable. That's where our lives were, in the hands of the Emperor on the Throne. My right hand grasped the glorious pendant clasped around my neck.

I reached back and felt the grav-chute on my back, and wondered for a moment if we would die here, in the personnel compartment of our carrier. The airborne vehicle shook violently as flak rounds burst in the air around us, the view ports showing us a cloud of black smoke like oil in the water in the morning sky.

The light above the door to the cockpit shifted green, and the men stood from the benches located on either side of the compartments, lasrifles stored at their shoulders and out of the way. If our hands weren't free we'd miss our targets, and there would be no need for them.

But for the men in my squad, the 42nd Harakoni Warhawks storm troopers, going last was not an option. Veteran Sergeant Mofor stepped to the carrier door and grasped the hand rail. With a flick of his gloved hand, the button blemished green. The door pushed away and slid out, the air in the compartment suddenly seemed to rush outward. The sergeant raised his foot and without a word, slipped out in the skies. Adjusting my face mask, I followed behind Cowboy who turned to me just before he zipped out, having thrown what I thought could have been a wink behind his visor.

Without hesitation, I drifted downward as air seethed around my aerodynamic carapace armor, the pride of the Warhawks. Not just among the storm troopers, but even the guardsmen used such equipment, and we needed them to fulfill their objectives if we were to survive our own.

As I passed through a blanket of a cloud, I saw the target. The large structure stood well in the mountain ranges with large domes that threw back the encroaching sunlight with their luster. The only exceptions was the single large dome to the east, where an earlier bombing run by Imperial bombers had shredded the commerce sections of the community. That was our target, our way into the heart of the mission.

I didn't look up. I knew full well that the remainder of the storm troopers and the duo squad of guardsmen had followed me out of the carrier. But as I glanced down the silhouette of the sergeant angled his body and dived towards the dome below. Cowboy had followed suit and I was right behind my sergeant and my best friend, no matter how much of a terrible influence he probably was. There was no way I could have guessed our altitude, but the dome was magnifying beyond the length of my peripheral vision at a gradual rate before sergeant Mofor threw his grav-chute. Cowboy echoed his action as did I, and above I heard the other squads as they mimicked us.

As we were swallowed into the darkness of the dome, the sky faded behind. The gaps in the domes were large, but without the care of our grav-chutes glide thrusts, we would have easily snagged the ruined edges of the domes torn openings. As we neared the landing, my fingers itched to put my hellgun in my hands. Tiny figures in the distance and darkness appeared in rested positions, often times masked behind debris.

There was a clatter below as Cowboy, who had struck the ground before me, fired round after round of smoke grenades from his launcher, the areas near the landing zone quickly becoming haze filled gray clouds as I touched down with my knees bent, clicking off the grav-chute which ripped free of my armor and grasped for my weapon. Even in the obscuring mist, I could see the figure of a coughing individual that in no way could have been one of ours. Mofor didn't have to give the command, I wrested the hellgun from my shoulder plate as the cables dangled from the force of my actions. My thumb came down on the safety and immediately I squeezed the trigger harder than I should have.

At once a beam of ruby sparkled to life, glittering with repeated pulses of energy as it lanced out and struck a figure in the dark. I heard a scream as the laser rounds found their target, though I never saw the alerted figure fall.

Although I had struck first blood in the imminent conflict, it came at some cost. My hellgun had given away my position, and although I drew attention away from my squad mates who busied themselves with landing, arming and covering themselves, I had become the focus of the enemy's attention. I threw my head low and torpedoed myself behind a few steel girders that had fallen from the damage eschewed by our bombers a few hours before. My suspicions were confirmed when laser rounds stenciled the vicinity of where I was a second before.

Mofor voice crackled through my comm-bead, "Wall-breach! On the _move_ Warhawks!"

To my left, I saw Cowboy fire another round that detonated in an automobile sized mushroom of heated fire some 20 meters from our position. The beacon of the flames illuminated two startled targets in the smoke and with gusto I unleashed a fan of laser fire that spread through the two of them. I saw at least one confirmed kill as he leaned away from the blow, his upper chest and neck spewed the shape of liquids freed from his body.

I dashed to my left and began my advance after I switched my auspex to display heat signatures. I glanced left and right to confirm my squad mates lining up a distance of 5 meters from each other. Cowboy was to my right and another to my left, probably Jull if my estimate of his height was correct. I stepped forward, leveling my weapon both hands. With each step, figures appeared in the ruins. Each figure was caught up in a scene of wild confusion, coughing fits or general panic. Emotions that were ended with a hasted sweep crimson energy. While I could not see the damage to the individual, their jerked body language and the scent of crisped flesh that covered the smell of something ghastly told me that we had found our mark.

As I passed over the remains of one of the enemy troopers, the stench was not to be believed. I glanced down and toggled my auspex off to take a single, fast look at the enemy. The mist of gray was becoming more dispersed and at less than a meter I saw the body of a crimson clad individual, his uniform mingled with the char colored ichor of his blood. His flesh was displaced a sickly pale that blotched the colors of veins and arteries behind the pallor, and even shades of yellow and gray where skin showed signs of decay. With teeth that seemed unnaturally sharpened and eyes rolled up into his skull. Tattooed upon his brow was the mark of the enemy, a circle with eight arrows pointing outward. The mark of Chaos.

If my mask hadn't been in the way, I would have spit upon the corpse.

The smoke was beginning to disperse and the wall of hellgun fire, plasma rounds and grenades quickly ceased as we took fast cover behind the debris. A few meters behind, I heard the clicks of the heavy bolter teams who snapped their tripods on the cement ground and shoved ammo belts into the hungry chambers of their weapons.

"West by Northwest!" Jull shouted into his comm-bead. I switched off the heat auspex to make sense of the large mass of orange approaching our position. It was at least a few squads of enemy troopers, who begun to fan out and tried to seek out cover before our bolters and hellguns greeted them as hostile as ever. The mob was turned into meat in mere seconds as laser rounds pierced their flak jackets, immediately blistering skin and charring holes through their bodies. The enemy was thrown back and a few survivors, who had been graced with the alert of their allies' deaths, quickly dashed behind the walls of the gate they had emerged from. I thanked the Emperor for either the enemy's sloppy entrance or our fast weapon deployment teams.

But the enemy was not entirely stupid. There was a great screeching noise as the gates began to close, the remaining survivors tried to pin us isolated behind the massive doors of metal. Sergeant Mofor burst from cover, hellpistol in one hand as he reached for his powersword, unwilling to surrender the fastest route into the heart of the dome city.


	3. Chapter 2

Veteran Sergeant Mofor dashed with intense speeds that came with years of endurance training in the storm troopers. As he disappeared into the crevice of the nearly closed gate, there was a pair of crimson flashes on the other side. The gates, which were massive panels striped black and cautious yellow, came to a grinding halt before they began to slide away from one another, the light from the exposed ceiling piercing the shadows. Twin puddles of toxic blood mixed with some other unidentifiable fluids that flowed from the ruined stumps of a pair of corpses.

For all the years that I have known Mofor, he's calm and collected manner combined with a confidence drawn from years of experience, is that I have never actually had a moment to see him land the kill with his powersword. The man was simply too fast or concealed before the blows came. As I leveled my hellgun to the right, the guardsmen behind us hurriedly packaged their weapons to follow. We secured the gate and waited for all three teams to cross through.

Mofor turned from the control panel of green and red lights to us and shot nods to Lieutenant Becks and his two Sergeants as they flashed salutes and split ways. Sergeant Kerrin and Becks himself headed north, towards the airstrip where our rendezvous and evacuation was to land in a mere twenty minutes. Sergeant Othloe was with us as Mofor dashed up the metal staircase that was a spiral that connected the tower between us and the other domes.

I glanced at Becks one last time as his team disappeared down the cement floors and opened gates to the north. As the shadows swallowed him and his team, I raised my weapon to the staircase above. With a trained eye, I kept watch for sentinels and enemy units moving in a position to pin us down. At this vantage point, we could have been ambushed and crushed with little way to strike back. And with the uneven staircases, the heavy weapons team with Othloe's boys could not deploy.

Clad in our khaki carapace armor and hefty energy packs, we ascended the staircase with a sense of urgency. Our mission was to allocate the promethium fuel line that ran throughout the base, follow it the center and set our demolition charges to blow.

Cowboy, who was just ahead of me, turned his helmeted head to the glass behind us and paused momentarily. As I caught up, I was aghast at the sight before us.

The pane showed us the civilian sector of the city, where the gothic architecture of the buildings crowded over streets that were choked by tiny figures sprawled through the scene. Bodies were simply stacked on each other to make way for the enemy troopers who marched through wearing gas masks. We realized that in the distance, the mists inside the city were tilted a greenish grey. I glanced up to see the large ducts above systematically dumping tremendous amounts of the colored mixture into the air. The people of the city had all been gassed to death. Trapped in their homes and locked within the northern dome by the enemy.

I felt my body grow cold at the realization of why our orders made sense. A few hours before, during the briefing, I raised question as to why this was an attempt to destroy the city as though it were an enemy base. Command knew what had happened already. They had kept it from us so that we would not give into the very rage that began to heat.

My desire for blood was answered not a moment later when the sound of a trooper above barked an alarm. His haggard voice was silenced by the swift fall of Mofor's powersword and the rush of his boots that clicked the staircases. He drove harder than ever, and both teams charged behind trying desperately to keep up.

As the sentries head bounced down the stairs and slipped below, I felt my legs burn from lack of oxygen. I raised my hellgun despite my exhaustion and squeezed the trigger. My eyes sharp on the pale head in the targeter, I saw a gush of crimson organic manner slap the wall like spilt paint.

Mofor suddenly ceased his charge to throw his back against the wall next to an opening. He raised his hellpistol in his hand and tilted his ear to the wall. Cowboy come up alongside him and kneeled down, flashing his face back a moment to see how far the others were behind him. When I crouched behind my friend, he discharged a grenade round which rebounded the corner of the ceiling and spun into the enemy's nest somewhere down the corridor of piping and wires. There was a sound of fire, men screaming and death reaping its toll. Without a word, I dashed to Cowboy's left and threw myself into a barrel roll to the opposite side of the opening were I crouched low and angled my hellgun down the hall. My targeter fed me data from my gun straight into my helmet, and I unleashed a blast down the way to a pair of figures that huddled the walls in their confusion.

The rest of the team pulled up along side Cowboy and I reached for a grenade. As the pin fell from the stairs, I tossed it as far down the corridor as I could before the primer went and the device set a second detonation to ensure the way was clear.

Immediately, Mofor and I rounded the corner and pumped our way through the corridor, our boots slapped the floors and echoed our footsteps as we desperately sought cover if there were any other enemies in the vicinity and if not, to prepare for the incoming.


	4. Chapter 3

A push through the enemy defenses left Jull slightly injured on the shoulder where a lasgun round found its mark. The big man merely grunted when the medico from Othloe's squad wanted to take a fast look at it. Jull had taken much worse and shrugged at the pain. Some days, I swore the man's father must have been an ogryn.

Keep that remark to yourself, by the way.

Pressing passed the exposed circuits and panels of the hall and stepping over corpses long rotting before we ever killed them, we neared the end of the hall. The elevator doors stood open and waiting for us, a cart rested in the corner. Mofor rushed over as soon as we were certain the route was clear. Giving the cart a fast inspection, he grabbed the handle and yanked it from the elevator cell to slam it against the walls away from us. Various tools of the Adeptus Mechanius clattered again the walls and floors and I knew somewhere there was likely as tech-priest who felt and cringed at the disrespect. But time was of the essence and we were running out of it in a hurry.

I wanted to check my chronometer and find out how long we had before the Valkyries made their descent and attempted a landing at the southern port. Hopefully Kerrin and Becks would have the situation in hand and waiting for us by then.

The elevator was too small for even one squad, much less twenty men. So Mofor nodded Othloe over and gave him orders. He was to take everyone but Jull, Cowboy, Felix and myself and double back to support the second team. Cowboy turned to me, his visor off at last to flash me a wry grin that I knew had to be trouble. Jull was grinning stupidly as well, and I couldn't help but look at Felix, masked behind his visor just as I was and wonder what the trooper was thinking of all this.

We all took positions in the elevator, Jull grunted as he bowed his head to enter the threshold. Mofor nodded to Cowboy next to the button console and with that, Cowboy elbowed the button for the lowest levels. The doors closed together and we all braced ourselves as gravity seemed to lighten up on five storm troopers who were likely wandering into a horrific ambush.

"When we hit the bottom, slam the open door button immediately. Do not wait for safety protocols," Mofor ordered.

Cowboy grinned from ear to ear, his stubble spreading across his stretched face. I glanced up at the meter to read where we were. 3rd floor… 2nd…

We stopped.

Felix and I immediately raised our weapons to the split between the door panels, ready to unleash a glorious burst upon the next fool to step through the doors. I felt a slight tickle of sweat on the tip of my nose and wished I could spare the second it would take to flick it off. But for no reason would I expend my attention anywhere but at that door.

The doors parted. I jerked the trigger and the recent corpse of a man in a crimson outfit sparkled of oil colored blood and stripped of flesh from our shots. The ruined slab of cloth and flesh hit the floor as two bewildered and shocked subordinates simply stood there behind the smoking ruins of the man, staring with disbelief at what just occurred.

"Going down?" Cowboy asked, that grin never wavering as he pumped a grenade round into the hall. The doors shut after he elbowed the button again, and the last we saw of the two men were their backs as they desperately tried to escape the radius of the grenade. The doors clicked shut as the cell shook from the awful tremor of Cowboy's demolitions. Somewhere, one of the two men screamed but it was muted behind walls of metal. The convulsions of the room shook the sweat from my nose at least.

We started our descent again, during which time Felix and I took position to fire again. As we slowed, Cowboy hit the button and the doors reluctantly swung open before the platform fully touched down. But there was no need to fire. Dimly lit, damp and crunched with wires and piping, the lower levels were not occupied with enemy troopers, servicemen or any individuals to concern ourselves with. At best, Felix tracked the motions of some species of rodent as it scurried itself away from the light reaching from the elevator.

With deliberate care, I took the first step out of the elevator and stepped to the right into the shadows. Felix took the opposite side and sank low on his knees. Jull and Mofor followed with Cowboy at our six. The doors shut behind us, casting us into the darkness illuminated by glow-orbs and strobes from the distance.

Sweeping his hellpistol left and right, eyeing even the tiniest movement, Mofor stepped 10 meters ahead of us before Felix, Cowboy and I moved up to flank. We stepped for what must have been another 25 meters before at last, Mofor brought his weapon up and glanced at the magnificent structure ahead of us.

To the ordinary eye, the structure was simply a gigantic pipe that ran vertically from the floor all the way beyond the ceiling. But to anyone briefed by the construction teams and tech-priests would know the importance of the titanic pipe. This device distributed promethium to the secondary generators, which in turn regulated the output of the entire structure. Ignited, the promethium would run combustion throughout the generators and force an overload in the eastern domes. The explosion would result in a shift in the eastern dome, coupled with secondary explosions that would run to the primary generators and triggering them. This would split all five domes and send the entire enemy structure tumbling down the mountains.

We were a couple of melta bombs from completing our objectives.

Cowboy grinned and stepped forward, having slung his weapon over his shoulder as he reached for the demo charges behind his back.

"The elevator is going back up," Jull noted. Our moment of privacy was drawing to an end rapidly.


	5. Chapter 4

Cowboy rushed to plant the melta adhesive to the promethium pipe as quickly as he could. For these critical seconds, we were without our weapons specialist, so we crouched behind the best cover we could, where we waited and hoped and prayed to the Emperor on Terra that the enemy would be held up just long enough for us to finish our business and get away.

As Cowboy cursed and accused the device up and down the warp, Felix noted that the numbers above the elevator doors were beginning to descend again. Whatever was coming came from as far up as the 10th floor and descended without any lull in the least. As it came down, an idea clicked somewhere in the back of my mind, "Jull, lemme see that wire you carry."

Mofor said nothing as Jull tossed me a wrapped bundle of metal wire from his backpack unit. I called Felix over and the two of us worked rapidly to firmly plant our grenades on a heated water pipe near the elevator shaft. With my hellgun slung about my shoulder, it was a little tricky to get the wire around the pin, but I managed to make it stick. Felix ran the other end to a pipe across the shaft. I held the pin as tightly as I could to the grenade as he made the trip line taught. When we felt secure that our booby trap was complete, we dashed back as the numbers above the elevator doors flickered to the 3rd floor.

Cowboy's position was outside visible range from the elevator, so Mofor, Jull, Felix and I took a concealed position around the piping and panels and waited as silently as we could. My heart raced as the elevator shaft began to stir of noises. They were here.

The doors clicked open. There was no sound at first, but a long beam of light was cast our way. Nothing happened, but still we waited.

Then shadows flickered across the light, followed by the clicking of boots on concrete flooring. Still, we waited.

Metal chimed on the floor. Someone shouted before the loud thud of the grenades deafened us all. A cloud of smoke and debris spit passed us, misted red from at least one of the victims of the blast. I felt a sadistic grin on my face, no doubt some subconscious influence Cowboy had on me in the last few months.

With no further ado, we introduced ourselves in a hostile manner, presenting a steady barrage of pulsing hellgun fire upon the few figures that stood in the steam and smoke that resulted from ruptured heating pipes and sparks of exposed electric wiring. The figures dropped without so much as a sound, but we heard their breath leave them as they fell upon the floor. Unwilling to risk the possibility of enemy troopers hiding in the elevator box, Felix tossed his final grenade into the light. It rebounded over a corner and deafened us again, this time knocking out the glow orb in the elevator shaft, but giving us a sense of security.

Cowboy rounded about the pipe and smiled, "I left one bomb to cover off this area, assuming we didn't just destroy our only exit."

Mofor grunted. "How much time?"

"20 minutes."

"We head west to the staircase. Then at the central hall, we head south to the rendezvous. Cowboy, make sure that elevator is useless, then plant your last melta at the staircase," Mofor instructed. The plan was ideal; seal the area so the enemy could not get a demo team down here in time to defuse the bomb. Then hightail it back to the landing zone for evacuation.

Cowboy nodded and hefted his grenade launcher towards the elevator, pumping twin rounds that thudded against the doors and left them a deformed slag. Even if the elevator car could head back up again, the enemy could not get the doors to open on this level, sealing them in the shaft.

As we rushed down the hall towards the stairway, Mofor held his weapon ready at all times. Normal protocol would dictate more prudence, but right then we had a mere 18 minutes to reach the evac zone before the entire installation became a freefall mountain sled. We were fortunate that the enemy had not thought to take the stairs down, and as we turned the corner to dash up the stairs, Cowboy paused a moment to plant his last bomb with a mere 2 minute timer, just over the hall beams. The destruction that would result would seal the area long enough that the great enemy could not hope to stop the timer.

But above us, we heard the clatter of enemy troopers scrambling, and knew that our greatest test had come at last.


	6. Chapter 5

The clatter of five men who dashed up the stairs filled my ears and stifled the light from above with their shadows. I breathed hard, as I watched sweat become steam and cloud my visor. With a harsh curse that only the Emperor and I would ever share, I jerked my face mask off and let it nestle just above my neck.

Mofor led the charge up the stairs with his powersword swinging energetically from side to side, always he steadied his weapon forward and never would he allow the enemy to surprise him around the corners. It was somewhere around the fifth floor that his hellpistol flared red before he continued our mad, endless charge up level by level, until we paused at the exit doorway to the outer catwalks. I passed the body of an enemy clerk were the fool's blood ran its filthy ichor down the stairs with the consistency of tar.

Jull leaned in and peered just around the corner to spot what the firefight on the other side had become. Our position was relatively unnoticed, but some 100 meters ahead we saw the elements of Othloe, Kerrin and Becks squads holding their own against the enemy who cautiously raised their heads from cover to snap a few lasgun rounds and then hide before the belch of heavy bolters could reply in earnest.

It was the first time I had seen the enemy so visibly. Clad in dark red uniforms with chains to hold their flak breastplates in place, the most disturbing sight were their faces. Somehow they had outlived being only pale to the degree of a putrid color in their flesh, almost lightly green. On each of their shoulders and sometimes carved into their foreheads, we saw the eight pointed star of chaos. I felt a vicious pang of hatred welt up in my chest that went well beyond the training of the Harakoni Warhawks.

These were them. These were the bastards who had gassed 250,000 people trapped in their homes and in the dome cities. They had casually leaving the dead to rot in the streets and buildings as though a mere nuisance.

"You're snarling," Felix said.

I quickly calmed my facial features. I had grown accustomed to wearing the visor all mission that I forgot that my trademark facial expressions were visible, and more then once had gotten me into trouble in the past.

With care, Mofor stepped with a combination of haste and silence towards a nearby stack of metal crates which still bore the mark of the Imperium, though slashed through several times with a smattering of a blooded hand. Jull followed and I was right in toe. My eyes grew distracted a few minutes as I saw something break the clouds above us and saw the distant shapes of Valkyries descend from the sky. The twin birds cast great shadows, which masked the winking sun that descended beyond the western mountain ranges.

One of the Valkyries poised in the air, its weaponry brought to bear against the enemy position. With a shower of heavy laser fire, the enemy braced themselves hard against their cover as the pulses shredded a few of them too close to the Valkyries position to escape the higher angle of the aircraft. Meanwhile, the second Valkyrie had begun to ground itself. Landing gear crept from the lower wing tips and underneath the engine and fuselage.

We kept up the pace, determined not to let the enemy know that they were about to be pinned by a kill team. But before we reached the nearest enemy position, Mofor suddenly ordered us to duck down in a hurry. We obeyed without question, and slammed our knees to the concrete and remained still behind the crates. A few support squads of enemy troopers filed through in a hurry, their focus on the stalemate battle ahead. As they passed us oblivious of the danger, Cowboy turned a smirk to me. I resisted the urge to say something smart.

"This is the second weapons team! We're down to one box of ammo." Our comm-beads cracked to life.

"First team, same situation Lieutenant!"

"Othloe here, we got two clips left for each trooper. What's ETA on Mofor's squad?"

Mofor lifted a finger to his mask and pressed it up slightly, "Mirror rear."

"Understood," sounded a stern, young voice that must have been Becks'. "First squad, give second squad your remaining clips and embark. First team, pack it up. Stormers, give them the last of your grenades and be up the ramp. Ready to go when you are, sergeant."

"Fer a young'un, tha Becks is really shapin' up," Jull stated dryly.

I peeked over the crates to see the situation in full. The first Valkyrie had landed and opened the ramps. Troopers from the first squad were dashing up into the belly of the aircraft and I saw Nelus and the rest of the storm troopers join them. A moment later, there was a cacophony of fragmentation grenades as they ignited near the enemy's position and left the enemy scattered behind the boxes and crates, where the last heavy weapons team was fast to pick them apart, their shells chattering over the ground as smoke tumbled in the wind from the bolter barrels.

Mofor turned to us, "This is the last run. Get your grenades and prepare a Valhalla Rush. Jull and Felix on the left, Cowboy on the right."

"Sir?" I asked.

"Grayson, with Cowboy," Mofor stated.

I slipped my way to the right sight of Mofor after I handed my second to last grenade to Felix, who had used up his during our booby trap below. Sticking my thumb in the pin hole, I felt sweat trickle down my forehead and cheek. My tongue lashed out to lick the droplet off my upper lip as Cowboy glanced at me, "If you got any favors with the boss on the Throne, ask him if he'd get us through this."

"Cowboy, we're the ones doing him the favor," I replied back, and then Mofor gave the word.

The first Valkyrie rouse into the air and began to hover, shooting down on the enemy while the second aircraft began its descent to pick up the remaining troops.

We tossed our grenades and dashed forward, but not while firing. I watched shocked enemy troopers whirl around to find out what tapped them on the shoulder before the primer ignited the blast, which sent a wave of concussive blasts across the enemy's cover. Men screamed and died as the five of us sprinted forth, our boots tearing into the ground and our fingers holding down the triggers of hellguns. We hosed down the enemy who had taken notice of us, while ahead Mofor led our home-or-hell charge with hellpistol blaring and sword carving.

The enemy was caught completely off guard as we pressed through their line, and as my feet fell upon the first step of concrete clear of the crates I knew that we were in the no man's land. Red flashes of light stung the air around us and I felt one slice the side of my leg, but I kept the run going. Not here. This was not the place to die!

My eyes widened as we zipped the final 7 meters between cover and the crates that concealed our allies. But just as we cleared the last steps, Felix puffed his chest out and fell forward, his back armor sizzling black as a round found its mark.

Without hesitation, Cowboy and I turned around and began to fire our reply upon the enemy, while Jull slung his hellgun over his shoulder and reached down, hoisting Felix over his shoulders and continued his slowed run. Meanwhile, the remnants of the second squad and the heavy weapons team were rushing up the ramp. Becks and Kerrin themselves stood at the base, firing at the enemy with their lasguns as Mofor passed them and began his ascent up the ramp.

I dangerously turned my back on the enemy as Cowboy fired a final round and joined suit. Together, we stomped our way up the ramps as a shower of laser fire rifled the area we just stood. As we ran, Becks and Kerrin joined us for the final peg and we threw ourselves into the crowded darkness of the Valkyrie's interior, while the ramp squeezed shut behind us with a hiss.

Once again, the familiar slam of gravity overtook us. Breathing hard, I marched towards Jull and Mofor who stood next to the medic overlooking Felix.

"He'll be okay, he'll be okay," the medic assured Mofor. "He'll need an augmented lung, but he should survive this. All I can do right now is stop the bleeding and give him some painkillers until we return to the ship."

"Do it," Mofor grunted.

Cowboy and Jull breathed a sigh of relief almost simultaneously before Cowboy turned to me with the biggest grin on his face, "Well, we Felix out, I guess you'll be buying us drinks when we get back, eh Grayson?"

_The End_


End file.
